Understanding the role the women played in the slave trade
and community is important to offer a new dynamic to the study of slave
culture in general. Not only were slave women subordinate because of race
but they also shared the trials of the oppression of the female gender.
Women slaves played a key role in the development of slave communities
through the development of African Sexuality, Family Structure
and Economic Productivity. It is therefore infinitely important that
we must understand the slave trade from a female perspective to understand
the development of these slave communities.

"Sable Beauties and Ebony Queens"

The African female was ascribed not only economic
responsibilities when purchased as a slave. Often sexual duties and childbearing
were of primary importance to the plantocracy and white men were inexplicably
drawn to the ‘exotic charms’ of African womanhood. Throughout the slave trade,
black women often were represented and observed through the sexually repressed
European perspective that viewed them as immoral and promiscuous.

Many viewed black
female’s lack of modesty as a sign of their impaired moral nature and increased
sex drive. The view of the African female as a manipulating temptress thus
emerged and it was believed that she used it to her advantage to achieve favors
and obtain prestige. Another emerging view of black women was promoted by the
religious faction. These opponents of slavery saw the black woman as an innocent
victim of white male brutality and lust. They sought to defend the “violated
chastity” of “sable females.”

Not all images of
African women were so negative; in fact there were many favorable accounts of
black women’s attractiveness. Abolitionists and others of the time romanticized
and idealized African femininity by referring to them as “Ebony Queens” and
“Sable Beauties.” One European slave holder, John Stedman, contested that white
men preferred black women over white women. The picture featured above, is a portrait
painted of Stedman’s beloved slave mistress, Joanna. Evidence indicates that
Stedman respected her and bought her freedom.

Unfortunately, however, this idealized view of the black woman did not
dominate conceptions of the time. Many European observers saw African women as
rugged and animal-like because they were physically capable of doing the same
work in the fields as their male counterparts. White female servants were not
capable of performing the same tasks and so the "robustness of form" of black
females was negatively compared to European women. There is also evidence of
numerous affairs between white men and black women creating a large mulatto
population and greatly inciting the anger of a small European female population.

There are a few differing views on the formation of marriage in the slave system
of the Atlantic World by today's historians and cultural analysts. While
structuralists claim that family formation was just another form of
domination by the white man, cultural theorists contend that family
structure assisted in forming kinship ties and other forms of culture within the
community. Slave marriage unions tended to be rather unstable due to the fact
that they lacked a basis in social and economic exchange. Although in theory a
slave man owned his wife, the truth remained that legally she and the offspring
of such a union were the property of the slave holder and were at his will. More
often than not, slave families were sold off separately and split up therefore
making the family structure of African slave societies weak and unstable. Slave
marriage unions were also weakened by the insistence that African slaves were
promiscuous which was an effect of the institution of slavery. Slave owners
frequently engaged in affairs with their female slaves and whites often mistook
polygamy in African societies to be a sign of promiscuity.

Family Patterns

Slaves Alone

In the later stages of the slave trade there was
some evidence of single residence when slave families were separated by sale or
plantation-directed living arrangements. They would often consider themselves
married if they were living as part of an extended family unit, however
slaveholders only counted those with mates on estate as "married."

Matrifocality and the Matrideme

Slaves with children often lived in matrifocal or
"mother-centered" family units in which a mother's ties to her children is the
building block in kinship formation. This West Indian family system is referred
to as a "matrideme" and the role of the father in these systems was greatly
diminished because men were not bound emotionally or economically to their
children. Also, because the mother's relatives generally lied on the plantation,
the mother's significance in the family was of great importance. Economically
speaking, these mother-child bonds were the classification used in the trade of
slave families. By the mid 1700s, plantation lists only recognized the
mother-child couple. This family structure was fairly common in the sugar
plantations of Trinidad, where in 1813, 22.1 percent of slaves belonged to this
distinction.

Newly found evidence suggests that
conjugal unions among slave relations was more common than previously recorded.
Against the difficult conditions of the slave community, slaves were able to
engage in marital unions by choice rather than to satisfy planters or church
officials. Marriage was the most common in the West Indies in the 1600s,
declining thereafter. In few cases, some slave owners forced their slaves into
marriages to prevent them from union with a slave from another plantation. Also,
efforts of Christian missionaries created many marital unions of slaves into
nuclear family units that were often broken up due to the breakup of couples for
sale. The breakup of family units in sale become less frequent with the decline
of the slave trade in the Caribbean and soon colonial legislatures enacted laws
to prevent the separation of families in sale. In Caribbean colonies it is also
important to note that slave marital unions were protected by the church. In
North American colonies, however, slave marriages did not receive this
protection.

Polygamy

Due to
their traditions from Africa and highly imbalanced sex ratios on the plantation,
marriages of one man and several wives (and vice versa) was not too uncommon in
slave society. Women thus became a commodity in slave societies where only
skilled slaves and artisans were able to amass several wives. Although polygamy
was the preferred union of African slaves, due to plantation conditions and the
rapid conversion of many slaves to Christianity, it became less and less common
towards the later part of the slave trade. The origin of polygynous unions lies
in African heritage where the concepts of bride wealth (the sums males
paid to acquire their economically supportive wives) and female dowry
(the sum paid to the groom from the brides family in marriage). However, it was
not advantageous for a female to join a polygamous union unless a man's
resources were great enough to raise her standard of living significantly.
Usually in West Africa, men who engaged in polygamy were seeking to expand their
land wealth and thus needed multiple wives to acquire and maintain this
territory. Under different circumstances in Caribbean, however, these types of
unions were only occasional.

.

Women slaves worked in two distinct areas that benefited slaveholders directly;
these being domestic work and field work where they performed primarily
unskilled agricultural tasks. Women were often not admitted to work in the
skilled divisions of labor that offered more food and resources. Although the
female influence in productivity is somewhat unremarkable it is notable that
women fulfilled the roles in the feild because young male slave grew
increasingly unavailable.

Women as Domestics

In slave societies of
the Caribbean in the late 18th century domestic female slaves were more common
on plantations where sugar production was the most rapid. Although this is
somewhat true, more often than not slave assignments were based according to
what was the most profitable for the slave owner. Domestic slaves were usually
Creoles but were often Mulatto and African as well. Although domestic work did
not hold the same status of skilled labor, some benefits were received as
domestic slaves. Clothes, medicine and food were often provided to domestics and
women slave often used domestic labor as a means of gaining freedom. There are
many instances where personal slaves were informally freed while abroad with
their masters and the personal relationships with slave masters rewarded them
such privileges. In many cases slaves often preferred domestic labor to field
labor but as time wore on the trend was to move women into the fields to replace
the declining total of young male slaves.

Women in Field Labor

""Female laborers in the
coastal cotton plantations where they constituted nearly 60% of the labor force"

Most field work
on Caribbean plantations was organized into a three-tiered gang system. The
first tier was composed of adult slaves that performed heavy work like
digging holes for sugar which was said to be the most demanding of field tasks.
The second tier was made up of older and younger slaves that did the
lighter work on the plantation. These tasks consisted of planting cane, bundling
it and carrying it to the carts. The younger children on the plantation covered
the cane with dirt, this "little gang" would most likely make up the third
tier of production. As the influx of young African male slaves decreased,
women slaves were moved from the house to the field where they composed nearly
60% of the labor force. Women slaves, however tended to compose the second gang
of sugar production while the male slaves dug the holes. The fact that female
African slaves were versatile in both areas, domestic and agricultural, created
the popular image of them as the time as somewhat animalistic because of their
unparalleled female strength.

Artisan and Skilled Positions for
Women

Female salves
were rarely allowed to enter skilled positions as craftsmen or artisans but a
few skilled positions prevailed among domestics. In particular, only those
positions of seamstress and cook were considered skilled positions held by
female slaves. Other semi-skilled positions included nurses, nursery heads and
animal keepers. Many benefits were associated with these skilled positions, one
of them being increased respect among fellow slaves and their masters. There is
record of many skilled slaves earning widespread respect and sometimes
deferential terms of address.Also in addition to this, skilled slaves benefited
from cash payments from which they could purchase their freedom.